T20 Blast Reflections

 

Did you blink? Not so long ago the T20 Blast started, and now five minutes later it will reach its conclusion, today.


For those that did blink, *spoiler alert*!!, Dads Army is off the TV schedules/ Notts Outlaws failed in their primary and only objective to reach a quarter-final in the T20 Blast and with it another shot at Finals Day, which pretty much amounts to the same thing.


It's great that there hasn't been a huge gap between the group stages and the knock-out, play-offs of the quarter-finals, or that there hasn't been a similarly huge gap between the Q/Fs and Finals Day but this year's schedule have been hasty-hasty very very hasty! Some weeks have seen 3 - 4 matches played by counties, leaving little time for recovery or to regroup when things have gone awry. In Outlaws' case, there wasn't enough time for the head coach to cotton-on to what everyone else had seen and worked-out over the first week of the tournament: that some of his Old Faithfuls were spent geysers! All huff and puff but with little or not enough output to cause a splash!


Other teams had made improvements, done their homework and were ready for Notts.


In theory Nottinghamshire CCC is geared to compete in both the County Championship and in the T20 Blast competitions, but this year we didn't compete in the Blast. Too many players failed to show-up and didn't perform all too frequently, derailing the campaign.


Notts have the luxury of being able to accommodate/afford white ball specialists that because of the franchise tournament in August means they are effectively T20 specialists. Hales and Patel are contracted as such, employed to play just 14 games, bat 14 innings MAX, bowl no more more than 336 deliveries, job done! However in practice, Notts have other players that rarely feature in the Championship anymore - Jake Ball and Matt Carter for example. So would it not be fair to say that expectations should be high for a squad that largely only plays T20 cricket, led by another T20 specialist, who should be primed and ready at the peak of their games ready to perform at the scheduled times? What happened was that Outlaws played a tactic so tired and dated of chase and chase again, with players equally tired and dated, under-prepared, unfit and out of condition. Three heavy defeats against Lancashire, Warwickshire* and Leicestershire all at Trent Bridge (all chasing a target and falling embarrassingly well short) not only derailed Outlaws' bid for Finals Day, but also steam rollered it, poured petrol on to it and ignited the remains. Even with Leicestershire being robbed of two points by the ECB, Notts still lagged behind a pretty ordinary Yorkshire on net run rate by a country mile. Yorkshire had also slaughtered Notts at Headingley, which didn't help matters either - another game where we chased and failed.


Ben Duckett my have topped the Outlaws averages but to summarise the whole campaign you could say, if Alex Hales clicked, then Notts won in spite of the other batsmen, his destructive strike rate being such that, that momentum took us to the brink. Only in the 8 over farce at Edgbaston, where we should have won but messed in up did a score by Hales not get us to a win; but that game will live in infamy for the two "retire outs" - who thought it was a good idea to follow Brathwaite's lead and who thought not objecting to the original retirement (even though it is allowed in the laws) on the grounds of poor sportsmanship (or whatever the woke equivalent word is)? Samit's walking off for the last ball still leaves a bad taste in my mouth (I don't believe it to be sour grapes) and perhaps the cricket gods punished us for it again and again. Birmingham also crashed badly in the Q/F at Edgbaston, oh dear what a shame - "cheats" should never prosper!

As for Finals Day. Lancashire should beat Yorkshire and hopefully they will beat the winners of the Somerset and Hampshire semi-final, neither of which would gladden the heart if they won over all. I don't have Sky and a day pass doesn't really appeal this year so I ain't watching, so it can stay behind the paywall.


Next season perhaps we need a "specialist" T20 coach in charge, leave Peter to potter about with championship matters(?).

As Orac reminds me in the comments, next season please can we sit where we want without the need to book three months in advance? If this season was good for nothing else, it has proved there was no demand for seat reservations, alcohol free areas weren't popular and playing match after match relentlessly in blocks wasn't wanted by the paying public - there's only one Friday night each week after all is said and done.